


Own Kind of Hero

by MashpotatoeQueen5



Series: Ned Leeds Appreciation Squad [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Also I'm bitter about Far From Home, And a hell of a lot of heart, Asthma, Asthmatic Peter Parker, Ben Parker Dies, Best Friends, Birthday, Bittersweet, Bullies, But also I love Ned, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Feels, Fights, Fluff, Found Family, Founder: May Parker, From a minor character and so small its easy to miss, Funerals, Gen, Good Friend Ned Leeds, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Haircuts, Happy Ending, High School, How is that not a tag, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, I'm still bitter about Ganke, It felt really out of character for me, It's a good thing he has people like Ned to take care of him, It's just my inspiration, Kid Peter Parker, Kiddo, Legos, Like, Marvel did him dirty, Minor Character Death, Ned Leeds Centric, Ned Leeds Needs a Hug, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Ned is such a good boi, Ned just wants him to take care of himself, Not that this has anything to with the movie, Peter Parker is a Mess, Peter Parker is three ounces of whoopass, Peter Protection Squad, Precious Ned Leeds, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Ned Leeds, Protective Peter Parker, Sleepovers, Slice of Life, So I am in constant dialema, Still a fun film, Survivor Guilt, Trans Character, Trans Peter Parker, Transphobia, Vice President: Ned Leeds, Wakes & Funerals, Which isn't the main focus, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, Worried Ned Leeds, but like- only a little ittle bit, give him rest, he must have been so young in the holland verse, just a little bit, just a part of it, just not very true to the comics characterization, no spoilers for far from home, someone please help this boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 18:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20278147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MashpotatoeQueen5/pseuds/MashpotatoeQueen5
Summary: Peter Parker and Ned Leeds, from seven to sixteen, and everything in between.Or: Ned and Peter, growing up and being dorks, working through love and life and death and superheroes, and somehow turning out okay.Also Known As: Ned is one of the core members of the Peter Protection Squad, because that boy was born so damn full of *FIGHT ME* that he needs people to remind him to take a break.





	Own Kind of Hero

**Author's Note:**

> This whole fic is me throwing subtle shade at Far From Home- no spoilers though, I promise- mostly because I disagreed with how they characterized basically everyone, even if the film itself was very entertaining to watch.
> 
> Will rant afterwards.
> 
> Also, I will forever be bitter about Ganke. Just so you lot know.
> 
> Also Also, if anyone has a better idea for a title, my ears are open.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, though!

Ned meets Peter when they are both seven years old.

Peter’s got glasses that make his eyes look ten times too big for his face and a missing front tooth from where he tried to kick a ball and had instead eaten gravel. His hair is kinda long, hanging almost to his shoulders, but when he smiles his eyes squint up real tight and you can see every single one of his braces, and his shirt says  _ Pretty Fly for a Jedi. _

Ned compliments his shirt. Peter grins his too big smile and says he likes Ned’s hat, which is an off brand Iron Man baseball cap his grandma got him from a street vendor as an apology gift for missing his birthday.

The friendship is instantaneous.

And here’s the thing.  _ Here’s the thing.  _ Ned cracks poor science jokes or rambles on for half an hour about a cool new tv show or comic he’s read, and Peter laughs and responds and rambles right back. Ned finishes his lunch and puts clammy sticky peanut butter jelly hands in his mouth to get to that last morsel of goodness, and Peter doesn’t even bat an eye before pushing over the other half of his own sandwich.

Peter doesn’t even care that Ned is a bit slow at gym class, and always is out at the very beginning of dodgeball. In fact, Peter has asthma and is even  _ worse  _ at running than he is, which Ned should feel bad about, and does feel bad about, even if he’s also secretly relieved that he has someone to run slow  _ with.  _

Eight years old, and Peter shows up to their meet up in the park with a decidedly sharp grin on his face and short choppy hair that looks like it’s been hacked at with a weedwacker. It’s the kind of grin Peter gets when he’s trying to come off casual but is gearing for a fight- and Peter always fights, despite asthma and poor eyesight and small frame- and Ned’s not sure why but he’s getting the sensation that this is somehow an important conversation.

So Ned raises his eyebrows- a skill he’s been working on recently- and waves awkwardly at the entirety of Peter’s being.

“I like your haircut,” he says, and when Peter beams at him for real this time, he knows he’s done the right thing.

The bullies find them soon after, and its stupid and its annoying and Peter still stands up, gearing for a fight- always gearing for a fight- but Ned grabs his hand and tugs and yanks and  _ pulls  _ until Peter runs away with him, scowl on his face but hands still firmly gripping because they haven’t yet been taught that caring for each other could somehow be wrong.

And Ned doesn’t know it yet, but there’s a fight in this boy’s bones that won’t ever go. It’s an angry sort of fight, one that bristles and boils underneath the skin, and Peter might be smiling but it's because he’s brave and not because it is easy. This is a world that took his friend and dumped every single kind of pain and responsibility on thin not grown shoulders, and this is a boy who breathed tight and determined and  _ alive _ and did not let go.

(Ned looks at this boy with his bony knees and elbows, with thick lensed frames and scrapes on his cheek and fire in his heart and thinks  _ hero, hero, hero  _ long before Peter ever pulled on any sort of mask.)

Nine years old and Peter pauses in placing the final lego piece on their Millennium Falcon, his teeth worrying his lower lip. He’s been acting off all day, opening his mouth to speak only to fall silent or change the subject. There’s a pinched look to his eyes, something fragile hidden in their depths, and Ned is still small and young and doesn’t quite have the words to say  _ it’s okay  _ and  _ I’m here for you  _ and  _ no matter what. _

“Ned,” Peter says, voice tentative before it gets an almost unnatural steadiness, “remember when we said we’d be friends like Captain America and Sergeant Barnes were? Like-  _ best  _ friends, right?”

And Ned nods, because he  _ does  _ remember, and it was quite possibly the best day of his life.

“Well, I have- something. To tell you.”

"Okaaaaay…?"

Peter swallows, eyebrows pinched, his fingers claw into the pockets of his shorts and then he consciously loosens them. 

"I want you to know- I mean- I'm a, I guess, I mean I'm not a, a- uh-"

Ned swallows. He's nervous, because Peter's nervous, and he has never done well in high stress situations. His mom says it's just a side effect of being connected to his emotions. His dad calls him over sensitive, which makes his mom thwak the man’s arm and shoot a disapproving look that Ned pretends he doesn’t see.

Peter finally breathes, sucks the air in and then out, and then makes the effort to meet Ned’s gaze. It would be quiet, if not for the fact that Ned’s dad is singing along sort of badly and definitely loudly with the radio in the kitchen, and that kind of ruins the moment.

Peter's eyes only look a little wet and mostly determined when he opens his mouth and says, quietly, carefully, and sure, "I'm a boy."

Ned blinks, peers closer at his friend, resists the urge to reach out and place his hand on the other’s forehead, like his mom sometimes does to check his temperature.

“Yeah, you are. What’s that got to do with anything?”

Peter makes a noise of frustration even as he raises his eyes to the ceiling. Ned watches in complete confusion. 

“I mean,” says Peter, voice strained, “that sometimes people- that I used to, uh. That um. Some people think that I’m- uh-”

He snarls, slapping both palms over his eyes with a resounding smack. 

“Why is this so hard?” he mutters into his skin, barely audible to Ned and definitely muffled. 

Ned just watches on in confusion for another moment, but then he puts his big brain to work and goes, carefully, slowly, “Is this about the whole changing room thing with Coach Ward?”

Peter nods, starts to shake his head, and then nods again. His face is still buried in his hands. 

“And why you don’t let me come over to your house?”

Another nod.

“And why you borrow my clothes so much?”

Peter peeks an eye out and nods once more.

Ned nods himself, because it feels like the thing to do.

Then they fall into awkward silence.

“Aren’t you gonna say anything?” the smaller boy asks, voice almost aggressive and almost hardened, but Ned knows his friend, knows what it sounds like when he’s on the defense, and just shrugs.

“I don’t really care either way,” he says, and he doesn’t, mostly because he’s still not really sure what point Peter is trying to get across, “I mean, as long as you still wanna build legos, we’re cool.”

The other boy is staring at him as if he’s just declared himself king of all the aliens, or maybe as if he’s just become the greatest thing either- Ned can’t really tell, maybe they're the same thing- and it leaves him floundering for something else to say that’s less lame.

“You’re you, ya know?”

And that sounds kind lame, too, but Ned figures it’s the right thing to say when Peter looks down at his hands and smiles, curls thin dirty fingers tight and then places the last lego piece into place.

And that’s not the last of it, of course, because later Ned will play back up when Peter marches up to his aunt and uncle and tells them in words that tremble but do not break that something got mixed up in the gene pool because Peter is very sure that’s he’s  _ Peter,  _ not anyone else, and if that change could be implemented as soon as possible that would be  _ great,  _ thank you very much…

It’s not the last of it, because life is an experience and not a given fact. But Peter meets each day with a grin made of fire and sunlight, and it’s not everything but it's tenacious and terrible and  _ here _ , and it rises like a sunrise and Ned holds on tight and rises with it.

It’s not the last of it, but Ned shares grins with Peter’s braced smile over May’s only  _ slightly  _ burned cookies, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ten years old. They are sitting together a little bit apart from the rest of the class, a field trip gone on too long and the spray from the haywire fountain behind them refreshing on their backs. Peter is snickering because of a story Ned has recalled from dinner last night, and watching his friend’s eyes scrunch up with good humour makes Ned feel far more accomplished than it really should.

But this is what it is, to be alive. Maybe. Hopefully. Ned’s ten years old, not some wise old wizard in some grand ancient tower. He does not hold the secrets of the universe in the palms of his hands nor the knowledge of the ancients in his eyes, but maybe he doesn’t need to. 

His mom has taken to cupping his face in her palms and telling him to let himself be young, and Ned scrambles his brain for another humorous tale to tell and thinks that this must be how. Maybe this isn’t how it works when your thirty or forty or even twelve, but it’s how it works for him, right here right now, with silly stories and fountain spray, and a sky so big and so blue above them it seems to be whispering of a life of no limits. 

It’s enough, either way, and Ned does not go looking farther, just lets himself be content.

Eleven years old, Peter is gasping and coughing in the corner of the gym, hunching in over himself, face pale and eyes watery behind his glasses and lips almost blue. Ned is panicked and trying not to show it, trying to get Peter to sit up straight, trying to run through symptoms and ways to help, and failing miserably.

The teacher is standing behind them, looking more than a little panicked himself, frozen in place and staring at Peter like he’s some sort of alien life form. Even further back is the rest of the class crowding closer, their eyes wide and hushed murmurs flitting back and forth between them that he doesn’t bother paying attention to.

Ned looks up from where he’s got a hand steadying Peter’s shoulder, finds the coach  _ still  _ standing there, and almost  _ yells  _ in frustration.

“Well!? Don’t just stand there! He’s having an asthma attack!”

And it’s ridiculous to watch as the coach jumps and then springs into action, yelling for someone to get the nurse as he himself dashes into the locker rooms to try and find Peter’s inhaler, and Ned just snorts under his breath and then focuses on his friend, who is looking up at him with panic written into every line of his face and more than a little frustration.

Ned swallows, hard. Peter is so much better at this kind of stuff than him.

But he’ll try anyways.

“You’re going to be okay,” he says, as slowly and as clearly as he can, and Ned can't really tell but Peter's next sharp inhale sounds almost like one of affirmation, or at least recognition.

The teacher comes running back in, inhaler in hand, and Ned helps steady Peter’s trembling hands over blue plastic, watches as the medicine does it works and his friend begins to breathe easier.

There’s further chaos when the school nurse comes bustling in, short tempered and to the point, and when she tuts and gestures for Peter to follow her back to her office, Ned’s by his side, steadying him and supporting his sweaty trembling frame.

And it’s not much. It’s  _ not,  _ he did practically nothing. But he feels like a superhero, like Captain America, like Iron Man. He feels brave and larger than life. He feels like he did good, something worthy and valid and real, and it’s not much but it’s  _ something. _

And Peter sits slumped on the uncomfortable cot, and Ned sits beside him, and he forgets how long they wait and what they’re talking about but it’s  _ hilarious,  _ especially with them high on relief and adrenaline, and one thing leads to another and Ned accidentally sets Peter off again, making the nurse shoot him a disapproving look and shoo him out into the hall.

Ned doesn’t mind too much, though. Especially the next day, when Peter finds him and smiles his hundred megawatt grin, knocks elbows with him as they make their way through the clustered halls.

And listen, listen, knocked elbows and shared grins aren’t very much, either, but they’re definitely something, too.

Twelve years old, and Ned is angry at the world for no particular reason, or maybe every reason to ever exist. Fathers, he decides, are overrated. They are loud and stupid and they never listen, instead choosing to blow up again and again about their ridiculous opinions, choosing to present them to the world as facts when truly they are anything less. 

His heartbeat is too loud in his chest and his jaw aches from his new braces, and he wants to scream into a pillow or maybe eat his weight in ice cream, but when Peter pulls his apartment door open he still manages a smile.

“Hey,” Ned says, and it sounds kind of pathetic and he’s finding it really hard to make himself care, “can I stay at your place tonight?”

Peter squints at him from behind his glasses, shifts awkwardly on socked feet. He’s balancing a tray of hot...  _ something _ in one hand and his mouth is obviously full from sneaked food, but he swallows painfully and offers a grin anyways. 

(This grin is small, questioning. It asks  _ Are you okay?  _ and  _ What can I do to help?  _ all at once, with a small extra helping of  _ Happy to see you!  _ on the side. It is weird to see Peter without braces, but it is not bad, just different.)

“Yeah, man, of course, of course, I’ll get another plate for you-”

Uncle Ben calls out, asking who’s at the door. Peter steps out of the way and lets Ned follow after him, calling all the while that they’re gonna need another table setting. 

So he has dinner with the Parker’s that night. Tries some sort of fake baked ravioli dish and smiles at May for her efforts, even though it tastes kind of terrible and he can spot Mr. Parker ( _ “call me Ben, Ned, just Ben-”) _ quietly swiping some into a napkin and hiding it on his lap to make it look like he ate it.

And later, later, they will go and hide out in Peter’s room, harboring Ben-made edible snacks and the entire disk collection of Star Trek. Peter will look at him, brown eyes suspicious and worried all at once, and ask him if he’s okay.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ned will respond, and it will be the truth.

He doesn’t want to talk about the man who raised him, who he loves and cares for but can also make him so  _ mad  _ sometimes, because he has these  _ ideas  _ about how the world should work, about how people should work, and the words that spill out are so obviously wrong it makes Ned’s blood boil.

He looks at his best friend and wonders how anyone could think Peter- brave, tenacious Peter- as anything less than human, and cannot fathom it.

Either way, the other boy does not question or prod, just shrugs and nods and bumps shoulders, sets up Star Trek on the rinky dinky TV and lets Ned eat the majority of the popcorn without complaint.

With every action Peter seems to be painting the words  _ I’m here  _ onto the canvas of the world, with a special kind of colour that only Ned can see. It feels like a secret and it feels like a promise, and he grips tight and does not let go.

Who needs anger and frustration and stupid opinions when he could have this? This secret little pact, this friendship born alliance, that feels like the stuff of books and legends, like something someone might make a movie out of if they ever found out. It is a bond that says  _ you and me against the world,  _ like the three musketeers or Captain America and Sergeant Barnes, or Bert and Earnie, or Sherlock and his Watson.

_ You and me against the world.  _ Ned likes the sound of that.

Thirteen years old, and their respective adults pool their money together for a joint birthday party at the awesome new water park an hour’s drive away. Ned’s dad is stiff and awkward, his face oddly blank as he wishes Peter happy birthday, but Ned’s mom smiles twice as hard to make up for it.

Peter shoots him a look. It says  _ What’s up with that?  _ Ned shrugs in response, like it’s new to him, too, even though he knows the truth of what’s going on. Either way, his friend doesn’t need to know, not when he’s already putting up with so much stupid at school, not when the truth will only hurt.

And yeah, Peter and Ned aren’t particularly popular or anything, but no kid in their right mind is going to turn down a day of water slides and free food, and so the turn up is pretty great and everyone in general is pretty nice under the watchful eye of the adults, and all in all the day turns out to be a success.

And later, later, they are once again tucked away in the small crammed Parker apartment, cake and ice cream consumed and long gone, and Ned gets a hat from Ben, a fancy fedora of a thing. The man ruffles his hair and shows him how to put it on properly, how to tilt it at just the right angle to make it cool and classy, offers him a wink.

“You can tell a good character based on how a man treats his hat,” says Ben, a twinkle in his eye as he does the final adjustments. May nods solemnly besides him, but there’s a twitch to her upper lip that gives her away.

“Yup,” she says, and her smile is one that is young and in love, “I decided to marry this man on the basis of a particularly dashing boater-”

Ben spastically slaps a hand over her face even as he tries not to grin, and besides him, Peter rolls his eyes, looks exasperated, looks amused. 

“Shh, don’t listen to her. May, I thought we promised to never speak of that again. Didn’t we promise to never speak of that again?”

But May just laughs, and Ned ends up joining in, and Peter has always been one to throw himself into the emotions other people bring up to the surface without any hesitation, and so when he is surrounded by laughter he instinctively joins in.

And there they stand, and they are not invincible but the moment they are living in  _ is.  _ It is a moment filled with laughter and companionship and the coming of tomorrow, and it is no grand or brilliant thing but it is theirs to keep and that makes it important all to its own. It is a moment filled with life, such life, and it is fleeting but it is real, it is real,  _ it is real. _

Fourteen years old, and that life is diminished.

Ned wears his fedora to the funeral. He places it on his head just like Ben taught him and tries not to cry when he looks in the mirror.

His crumpled face reflects back at him. It says that he is failing.

May cries the entire time and Peter cries not at all, looking spent and exhausted and shell shocked. Looking angry and determined and so, so sad. 

Ned sits and feels helpless. Ned sits and feels disillusioned and grieved and alone, even in a crowd of people. This is a man who bought secret ice cream treats on days out and helped with tricky lego instructions. This is a man who sheltered him when his own home felt so raw and angry that he could not stay a moment longer. This is a man who lived, and is now gone.

Ned grieves, and feels guilty for it, watching Peter’s slumped shoulders tremble. Who is he to grieve a man he knew though association when his best friend in the whole wide world grieves his uncle and his parent and his loved one? Who is he to feel lost when Peter was the one to stand in that thankless alley way with blood on his hands and his whole wide world at his feet.

Who is he?  _ Who is he? _

Two weeks later, and Ned still hasn’t seen his friend cry.

Peter is blank faced and blank worded, and Ned thinks of portrait canvas painted over with white intricate designs that few people care to see, and wants to smother colour all over it even if it is blood red, angry like fire and ugly like fear. 

At least then it could be acknowledged. At least then it could be  _ something. _

Ned doesn’t know how to help. Doesn’t know what to say. He feels nine years old again, still figuring out how to say  _ it’s okay  _ and  _ I’m here for you  _ and  _ no matter what,  _ except this time it’s not because he doesn’t know the words but more because he doesn’t know how to present them so they can be received. 

He feels nine years old again, small and young and uncertain in the face of all this,  _ all this,  _ a problem and a lifetime so vast and grand it cannot be explained or limited or studied. There are a thousand right ways to do this, but they could also all be the wrong way, too, and Ned wants to yell in frustration but he also wants to weep, and his whole body, heart, and soul ache with a deep seated  _ something  _ that does not explain and does not give.

But this is the thing about friendship, about life. Ned does not know the words or the life he leads. The world is up in the air and uncertain and solid ground is lost beneath his feet, but Ned breathes and breathes and  _ tries  _ anyway.

There is no room for nothing in this life. Ned holds onto that fact with two hands not grown and does not let go.

(Life is an experience, not a given fact. And this will always be a part of it.)

Try, try, Ned reaches out a hand made to hold and tries to try, and it is not everything but it is enough, it has to be enough, it is  _ enough. _

And when Peter breaks, it is an art form. A tragic art, and a broken art, one that is bloodied and bruised and beaten, but perhaps that is why people look closer, to see the green pastures underneath.

He screams, he rages, he smashes constructed lego sets to the floor and watches all the little pieces fall apart. There is so much anger running through those thin veins made of fire, and Ned watches it explode with a sort of heaviness in his heart he cannot name. This is not beautiful, or pleasant, or kind, but it is here and Ned is glad for it. 

And when Peter finishes, eyes red and teary and face scrunched up as if pained, Ned takes one step and then another and pulls his friend into a hug, because he cannot say he understands because he does not, cannot, will not, but he can be here, and he intends to be. 

Peter shakes against his shoulder, hides his face in the crook of his neck as if it could make fast falling tears mean nothing, or maybe to make them mean everything, or maybe just to make them  _ there.  _

_ “ _ It should have been me _ ,”  _ Peter gasps into Ned’s shoulder, voice so wrecked it hurts to hear, “it should have been  _ me.” _

And Ned says nothing, has nothing to say, just pulls his best friend closer and thinks selfishly, guiltily, that he is glad that it wasn’t.

Selfish, selfish. Perhaps people are born selfish, but that is only if you think it is selfish to love, to cherish, selfish to want to protect and care and hold onto the things that mean the most to us, that push us forward in this life we can not know and will live anyways, because that is what people do.

Ned does not know of bloodied lips whispering words of power and responsibility into a darkened night. He does not know of spider bites and altered DNA and bone numbing fear of _what if, what if, what if. _He does not know this Peter who decides to become a superhero, who pulls on a mask made of roughly sewn fabric and swings out into the night with only the anger in his chest and a tenacious heart too big for a world that bleeds. He does not know this boy, this child, this savior hero warrior _trier _who fights in the black of night not because he thinks it brave or good but because he sees no other choice. He does know know him, not yet.

But Ned has known Peter to be gearing for a fight since they were young and small, has had inklings of the anger in this boy’s bones for most of his long short life, and he has never needed to see the mask to know that his friend is a hero.

(Selfish, selfish. Perhaps Ned is selfish. Maybe he is just being human. Maybe he is just being alive.)

Fifteen years old, an accident with a lego starship, and roughly thirty thousand questions later, everything makes so much more sense.

Peter is  _ Spiderman,  _ and everything is so, so cool.

Peter is Spiderman, and he comes back home with stories about saving the day, about giving directions to lost tourists and stopping muggings and robberies, about the  _ Avengers  _ and Tony Stark and flipping off skyscrapers. 

Peter can lift an entire school bus with his bare hands, swings around New York like he was born for it, and has a magical built in danger sense. They’re fifteen years old, and suddenly there is so much _more _they can do to goof off, and once or twice they sneak out in the dead of night just to mess around, because they are young and this is ridiculous and sometimes doing silly things like seeing how long Peter has to hang out upside down until the blood rushes to his head is what it takes to feel alive.

Life is good, life is  _ good- _

But also-

But also, suddenly there is so much more of it. So much more to Peter. Ned feels like something has shifted within their dynamic, and now he has to learn to live with this friend of his who’s body has finally become capable of keeping up with his too-big, fiery, tenacious bleeding heart.

Peter wakes up in the middle of the night, eyes full of fear and breath too loud in the darkness, reaches out with clammy hands to hold onto Ned’s own during sleep overs, and the grip is always too tight but he does not mention it. 

Peter wakes up in the middle of the night, but also sometimes he seems to go somewhere far away in the middle of the day, his voice going soft and quiet and then gone, and at lunch times it is now Ned who hands over the second half of his sandwich without question, watching Peter eat it fast and hungrily, hearing his friend’s stomach still rumble afterwards anyways.

Peter stops by his house sometimes, too, bloody and shaky and eyes dark with that fierce angry fire, and when Ned asks what happened his friend always just shakes his head and does not answer.

But he is Peter’s friend, so he does what he can. He packs extra lunch and starts keeping better track of the ice packs and first aid supplies in his house, even splurging and buying a first aid kit of his very own to hide in his room. 

This does not outweigh the awesomeness by any means. It does not stop Ned from pulling on the mask and feeling like a superhero all over again, like Captain America and Iron Man. It does not stop Ned from staying up some nights just thinking over and over again  _ I’m best friends with Spiderman,  _ and grinning like an idiot.

But it does remind him, in small and subtle ways, about the cons of being a superhero. About how it isn’t always about saving the day. 

In another life, Ned might have been jealous. He might have felt left behind and ditched and almost betrayed, because suddenly his best friend has all these amazing super cool super powers and he’s still just nerdy geeky Ned Leeds-

Maybe, sometimes, when Peter has blown him off for the upteenth time that week because the Avengers need him or there is some other major crisis needing fixing, Ned does feel that way, just a little bit. Maybe he does scowl at his ceiling for just a minute, or maybe two, and wish there was a world where Peter never got bit, or at least Ned got bit with him.

Maybe.

But- and here’s the thing,  _ here’s the thing-  _ Peter has always had this fight etched into his bones, born into this world angry at all the things he could not help, and he has always been tenacious, has always had a smile made out of fire and sunlight. To see Peter stand tall and breathe easy, to see him lift school busses and climb walls, it is almost like seeing Peter without his braces for the first time: it is weird, but it is not bad, just different.

So maybe in another life Ned is jealous and bitter, but in this one Ned has always seen a hero in these bony elbows and knobbly knees, in these eyes made out of hidden strength and vibranium and starlight, and he cannot bring himself to it, or at least not for long. 

Sixteen years old, and now that Peter has these powers and those whispers of responsibility rattling in his veins, he just moves so  _ fast.  _ Peter spends almost every minute of every day counting down to when he can put his suit back on and head back out into the world that bleeds, because somewhere along the line he put the weight of the sky on his shoulders and never put it down. 

He doesn’t know how not to help. This is a boy born with a miniature supernova firing off inside of his chest instead of every individual heartbeat, and Peter is so desperate to do good for this world that he will not and cannot ask if it deserves it. The question doesn’t even factor into the equation.

(This is a boy who faced every challenge and heartbreak life threw at him, and when it whispered at him to give into bitterness he gritted his teeth and responded  _ make me-) _

Peter fights the good fight not because it is easy but because it is hard, because he is determined and brave and angry, and he has seen the worst of this existence and decided that, no matter what, it would not be him.

Listen,  _ listen,  _ Ned watches his friend and sees a boy who fights every single day because it is carved into his bones, but Ned sees a hero just as much in Peter because he is someone who meets each day with a grin made of fire and sunlight, not because it is easy but because it is brave. This is a boy who knows he cannot be everything, knows he cannot save everyone, but lives a life tenacious and terrible and  _ here  _ despite it all.

Peter fights, but it is those who love him that drag him back down to earth, who remind him just why there is reason to grin. They remind him that he is not Atlas, he can not bear the weight of the entire sky above, or at least not alone. 

Selfish, selfish, perhaps it is selfish to pull Peter back, to stop him from saving the world each and every night, but love is a powerful thing, and it does not discriminate and it does not hesitate, not when it is real, and loving someone like Peter means saving him from himself.

It is May, her eyes soft and scared and so brave in the face of all this, who makes her kid sit down and eat, who says,  _ not tonight,  _ after three long patrols that ate up the darkened hours and left Peter dead on his feet but still angry and still determined to go out again and again and again.

It is Ned, young and scared and so brave, too. It is Ned, who spends a free hour of his time searching for cool lego models that they can build together, who looks up how to treat wounds and lacerations and concussions  _ just in case,  _ and on warm afternoons he drags Peter out for ice cream from one of the stall vendors lining the street. It is Ned, who sets up a time so that they can study for that upcoming Spanish test the two of them both know is going to be an absolute nightmare, and when a massive Star Wars marathon is going to be played at the movie theater it is Ned who pulls out his best puppy dog eyes and convinces Peter that he can give up a night of patrolling for a night of fun.

It is Ned, who has taken after his mother and has started cupping Peter’s face in his palms and telling him to let himself be young, because God knows Peter won’t think like that for himself.

(And maybe Peter is the one who is going to save the day, but it is Ned who helps save  _ Peter,  _ and that in and of itself is still something worthy and valid and real, and it makes him his own kind of hero.)

Ten years old and Ned had thought  _ a life without limits,  _ and maybe that’s still true when you’re ten but at sixteen it feels almost false. Sixteen, and those first thoughts of college and adulthood and fear of the future are looming, classes are harder and the world closes in.

But there is also the idea of discovery and growth and freedom, there is finding yourself, and sneaking out at midnight just to goof off. There are best friends and new friends and movie nights that stretch on into the early hours of the morning.There are aced tests and recalled stories and dreams being made and shaped and changed. 

There is still life, so much life, and it has always been an experience, not a given fact. This, all this, was always going to be a part of it.

Ned and Peter, Peter and Ned. Scientific rambles right before dawn and shared sandwiches in a school cafeteria shared with bullies that are never going to get how special they are. They are beings so vulnerable and still they take shining, brilliant moments and choose to feel invincible just because they have each other and they can. They still knock elbows and share grins, and it is still him and Peter against the world in a friendship born alliance that will always mean so much more.

And maybe this is not limitless but it is his, it is his,  _ it is his _ , and Ned breathes, tilts his head back to look at an endless blue sky, and lets himself be content. 

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the promised rant: I was watching Far From Home and enjoying it, but I guess the more I watched the more I got stuck on somethings, and hence this fic.
> 
> *SPOILERSSSSSS*  
My main bothersome aspect is that the two major characterizations of this film were switched. In my mind, after reading comics and stories and loving this hero for so, so long, it just didn't make sense. Peter Parker is a kid who rages against every dying light because he saw the worst the world had to throw at him and decided that he would do everything in his power to prevent it from happening to anyone else, decided that he would never ever become a part of the darkness that weighs down so heavy on his young shoulders.
> 
> It is May and Peter's friends that are the ones who tell him to take a break, get some sleep, eat some food. Who remind him, again and again, that there is responsibility but he is no help to anyone dead on his feet, that remind him that its not a bad thing to do stuff for yourself sometimes, to live for yourself and put aside the rest of the world for a minute because otherwise it can and will overwhelm you. 
> 
> The writers of Far From Home wanted to look me in the eye and tell me that Peter Parker- who has a guilt complex roughly the size of the moon and so much fight in his bleeding heart- gave up the suit, and furthermore it was his support system that was encouraging him to put it *on* and putting more weight on those heavy shoulders, and I just-
> 
> Gah. It was a good movie. A fun movie. It was well put together. 
> 
> But the characters in it? They weren't the characters I've come to know and love in the comics. I think it would have been much truer if they had gone the opposite direction- Peter constantly going out to fight crime, never taking a break, having to be pleaded and begged to before he agreed to the trip, and even then being insistent on take his suit to his field trip *just in case.* They could have taken the same basic structure of the film, but I feel that that opposite character arcs would have just been so much better, and interesting, and would have also given May and Ned and MJ and so many others and actual reason for being there.  
ALSO THEY DID NED SO DIRTY. THAT IS PETER'S FRIEND BRO. YOU ALREADY STOLE GANKE AND MADE HIM NED AND NOW YOU DO HIM THIS INJUSTICE. GRRRRRRRR  
*Spoilers over*
> 
> Anyways, that's the basis of this fic. It has nothing to do with the film, really, but I wanted to explore Ned as Peter's friend and confidant, his actual man in the chair. Ned as a crucial part of Peter's support system, a support system that the Peter Parker I grew up with actually needs.
> 
> Thanks for letting me rant. If your opinions are different, that's all good! If you want a friendly debate, cool by me. No hateful comments though, if you please. It's all chill. I respect you and your right to movie preferences. :)
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING!


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